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“How does Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain echo the main theme of the Aeneid?

The Aeneid describes in an epic fashion the destiny of the Roman people to bring peace to the world through conquering the nations and bringing civilization. Geoffrey directly echoes this idea as Brutus receives a prophecy that his descendants will govern the earth. So Geoffrey depicts the British people as being the heirs of the Roman destiny.

"Philosophical classifications are not like labels for political parties that people officially join; at best, they point to a salient feature that systems that differ in many other ways have in common. Such groupings fail to rise to the level of natural kinds; they are closer to what Wittgenstein thought of as concepts based upon family resemblances. They should be understood as handy devices for abbreviated referenced rather than as the product of a deep analysis of a philosophical tendency.

Ascension Sunday 2009 This Lord’s Day is Ascension Sunday, the day we have set apart to commemorate the exaltation of Jesus Christ to the right hand of the Ancient of Days. This was the day upon which He was given universal and complete authority over all nations and kings, when He was given all rule and authority, dominion and power. Our Lord’s name is the name which is high above every name, and His is the name that, when spoken, will cause every knee to bow, and every tongue to confess, that He is indeed Lord of heaven and earth. And, as we cannot emphasize too much, or say too often, this is no invisible spiritual truth. It is simply, undividedly, true. This means it is true in a way that makes it true on the most practical levels. It is true when church is over.

"It came to pass also in the twelfth year, in the fifteenth day of the month, that the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, even her, and the daughters of the famous nations, unto the nether parts of the earth, with them that go down into the pit. Whom dost thou pass in beauty? go down, and be thou laid with the uncircumcised. They shall fall in the midst of them that are slain by the sword: she is delivered to the sword: draw her and all her multitudes. The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of hell with them that help him: they are gone down, they lie uncircumcised, slain by the sword" (Eze 32:17-21).

One of the visions that the prophet Ezekiel was given was that of a parliament of dead kings, assembled in the nether regions of Sheol—the Greek word for this place is Hades. The prophet was speaking of nations which had had their time of great glory under the sun, but which, inevitably, had descended below to an empty governance of shades and shadows, the empty governance of nothing that mattered. This reality is inescapable—in Augustine’s trenchant phrase, among the nations of men, the dead are replaced by the dying, and however splendid an empire might be for the moment, there is no future for any nation outside of Christ. History occurs on the inexorable conveyor belt of moving time. There is nothing that will shut this conveyor belt off, and so there is no device to allow one nation’s day of glory to be forever fixed. Glory cannot be kept or retained in that way at all. There is no future glory for any king or president, for any nation or people, outside of Christ. So for those who reject Christ, below the earth in the nether regions, we find nothing but wisps of lost glory, and above ground at some future date talented archeologists might be able to find the remnants of an Ozymandian ruin.

Can you believe it? We just had our last Disputatio as a class at NSA?

God has been very good to us, allowing us to travel thus far. I am very grateful for such a wonderful class, and I hope we all keep in touch. To that affect, I plan to keep this blog going as a place where we as Alumni can come and keep getting NSA info, or see what’s going on in Moscow.

Here are the two videos I presented at Disputatio.

The first is a slideshow of some photos I through together of our 4 years here. It is only a tiny sampler of all the photos I have!

The second is a compilation of spliced videos from our 4 years. Again, only a sampler of what I have! I had to cut some GREAT stuff! (such as some of our declamations).

I uploaded a bunch of videos not shown here on a YouTube playlist called “Live in Moscow as an NSA student,” which you can find HERE

Yet we must hang on to this proposition of historical fairness with our very teeth, defending it against momentary appearances: European noblesse—of feeling, of taste, of manners, taking the word, in short, in ever higher sense—is the work and invention of France; European vulgarity, the plebeianism of modern ideas, that of England.—

This whole notion is rooted in the realization that Christianity is not just involved with “salvation” but with the total man in the total world. The Christian message begins with the existence of God forever and then with creation. It does not begin with salvation. We must be thankful for salvation, but the Christian message is more than that.

Why did we ever force the Africans to use Gothic architecture? It’s a meaningless exercise. All we succeeded in doing was making Christianity foreign to the African. If a Christian artist is Japanese, his paintings should be Japanese, if Indian, Indian.

The Following is the actual letter written by Rev. Stephen Boissoin who was at the time National Chairman of the Concerned Christian Coalition (now Concerned Christians Canada Inc.) It is this letter that has the Rev. Stephen Boissoin and Concerned Christians Canada Inc., (CCC) appearing before The Alberta Human Rights Commission.

The following is not intended for those who are suffering from an unwanted sexual identity crisis. For you, I have understanding, care, compassion and tolerance. I sympathize with you and offer you my love and fellowship.

I prayerfully beseech you to seek help, and I assure you that your present enslavement to homosexuality can be remedied. Many outspoken, former homosexuals are free today. Instead, this is aimed precisely at every individual that in any way supports the homosexual machine that has been mercilessly gaining ground in our society since the 1960s. I cannot pity you any longer and remain inactive. You have caused far too much damage.

My banner has now been raised and war has been declared so as to defend the precious sanctity of our innocent children and youth, that you so eagerly toil, day and night, to consume. With me stand the greatest weapons that you have encountered to date: God and the “Moral Majority.” Know this, we will defeat you, then heal the damage you have caused. Modern society has become dispassionate to the cause of righteousness. Many people are so apathetic and desensitized today that they cannot even accurately define the term “morality.”

The masses have dug in and continue to excuse their failure to stand against horrendous atrocities such as the aggressive propagation of homo- and bisexuality. Inexcusable justifications such as, “I’m just not sure where the truth lies,” or “If they don’t affect me then I don’t care what they do,” abound from the lips of the quantifiable majority.

Face the facts, it is affecting you. Like it or not, every professing heterosexual is having their future aggressively chopped at the roots. Edmund Burke’s observation that, “All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing,” has been confirmed time and time again. From kindergarten class on, our children, your grandchildren are being strategically targeted, psychologically abused and brainwashed by homosexual and pro-homosexual educators.

Our children are being victimized by repugnant and premeditated strategies, aimed at desensitizing and eventually recruiting our young into their camps. Think about it, children as young as five and six years of age are being subjected to psychologically and physiologically damaging pro-homosexual literature and guidance in the public school system; all under the fraudulent guise of equal rights.

Your children are being warped into believing that same-sex families are acceptable; that men kissing men is appropriate. Your teenagers are being instructed on how to perform so-called safe same gender oral and anal sex and at the same time being told that it is normal, natural and even productive. Will your child be the next victim that tests homosexuality positive? Come on people, wake up! It’s time to stand together and take whatever steps are necessary to reverse the wickedness that our lethargy has authorized to spawn. Where homosexuality flourishes, all manner of wickedness abounds.

Regardless of what you hear, the militant homosexual agenda isn’t rooted in protecting homosexuals from “gay bashing.” The agenda is clearly about homosexual activists that include, teachers, politicians, lawyers, Supreme Court judges, and God forbid, even so-called ministers, who are all determined to gain complete equality in our nation and even worse, our world. Don’t allow yourself to be deceived any longer. These activists are not morally upright citizens, concerned about the best interests of our society. They are perverse, self-centred and morally deprived individuals who are spreading their psychological disease into every area of our lives. Homosexual rights activists and those that defend them, are just as immoral as the pedophiles, drug dealers and pimps that plague our communities.

The homosexual agenda is not gaining ground because it is morally backed. It is gaining ground simply because you, Mr. and Mrs. Heterosexual, do nothing to stop it. It is only a matter of time before some of these same morally bankrupt individuals such as those involved with NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Lovers Association, will achieve their goal to have sexual relations with children and assert that it is a matter of free choice and claim that we are intolerant bigots not to accept it.

If you are reading this and think that this is alarmist, then I simply ask you this: how bad do things have to become before you will get involved? It’s time to start taking back what the enemy has taken from you. The safety and future of our children is at stake.

"This picture establishes the direct relationship between vision and knowledge for which the Dominican Aquinas had argued in his Summa Theologica. Just as we still use the phrase "I see" to mean "I understand," For Aquinas the word visio meant more than just vision. "This term," he writes, "in view of the special nature and certitude of sight, is extended in common usage to the knowledge of all the senses and it is even made to include intellectual knowledge, as in Matthew 5:8: ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’" The Pisa altarpiece, like most Gothic images, was not considered primarily as a work of art by its contemporaries, but as something far more powerful and instrumental, because of its capacity not just to reflect the world, but to reshape it in God’s image."

This brings us to the true function of decoration in a twelfth-century book. It was clearly not just because it was pretty. The twelfth century was an age which delighted in classification and ordering of knowledge. Its most admired writers, men like Peter Lombard and Gratian, arranged and shuffled information into order that was accessible and easy to use. Twelfth-century readers loved encyclopedias…Les us then consider book illumination in these terms. It suddenly becomes easy to understand. Initials mark the beginning of books or chapters (PL.85). They make a manuscript easy to use. It helps classify the priorities of the text…A newspaper does this today with headlines of different sizes…any reader of a modern newspaper will fiercely defend his choice of paper by praising the text, not the layout or illustrations. It is not surprising that the twelfth-century chroniclers from St. Albans, Lincoln, and Canterbury complimented the accuracy of manuscripts when what they meant was that they liked using them.

O Socii, today is a great and honourable day. It is a day in which we can put to use our right as citizens of the Unitest States of America to elect our leaders. In days past leaders were often chosen through strength of arms. Men proved their courage on the battle field, fighting for their king, that they might live peaceful lives under their king. We have no bloody battle field on which to pour our blood and prove our valor, but we do have the Moscow Fair Grounds, and today, until 8 p.m. May it not be said of the students of New Saint Andrews college that they did not bother to go out and vote. Furthermore, this is going to be a close vote – 50 could turn the tide of the election. You may feel like it’s not your place to vote in Moscow, but it does affect you. It affects NSA, it affects the families you’re boarding with, and it affects our churches. If you’ve lived here for more than 30 days, you can vote! Please vote!

Please vote for Krauss and Carscallen for the 4 year seat (do not vote for a 3rd person) and Steed for the two year seat.

How beautiful again is the sea, and how splendid in its entirety, with its crowd and variety of islands, its picturesque coastlines and beaches! It is the home of so many different species of marine life, partly dwelling under water, partly floating and swimming on the surface, and partly encrusted on the rocks with its shells. The sea itself in its longing to embrace the land, sports on its shoreline, so that the two elements seem to merge into one.

…Children ought to be provided with property and resources of a kind [referring to the tools of philosophic knowledge and learning] that could swim with them even out of a shipwreck. These are indeed the true supports of life, and neither Fortune’s adverse gale, nor political revolution, nor ravages of war can do them any harm. Developing the same idea, Theophrastus, urging men to acquire learning rather than to put their trust in money, states the case thus: “The man of learning is the only person in the world who is neither a stranger when in a foreign land, nor friendless when he has lost his intimates and relatives; on the contrary, he is a citizen of every country, and can fearlessly look down upon the troublesome accidents of fortune. But he who thinks himself entrenched in defenses not of learning but of luck, moves in slippery paths, struggling through life unsteadily and insecurely.”

~Vitruvius, De architectura (The Ten Books on Architecture), book VI. 1st century B.C.

All the gifts which fortune bestows she can easily take away; but education, when combined with intelligence, never fails, but abides steadily on to the very end of life.

Talked with Augustine, finally converted to Christianity and was baptized

Pope Gregory corresponded with this king

Died in 616 – he ruled for 56 years

Edwin

Ruled over all England except Kent

Became a Christian through the teaching of Paulinus – baptized 627

Married Ethelbert’s daughter Ethelburh

King of Wessex sent Eomer to assassinate him

Received correspondence from Boniface and Honorius

Brought peace to Britain

Died in 633 at the Battle of Hatfield Chase

Oswald

King of Northumbria“the most Christian king of the Northumbrians” – Bede

Asked for a bishop from Ireland (Aidan came)

Ruled 9 years

Killed at the battle of Maserfelth

Alfred

d. 899

Crowned king by Pope Leo in 872

Son Edward took the throne in 901

Buried in Winchester

Occupied London 886

Canute

Denmark / England

Reigned from 1016 – 1035

Laid everything to waste from Sandwich to Wessex -1016

1017 – 1031 Reigned in England

Went to Rome in the fifteenth year of his reign – to atone for sins

Died and was buried at Winchester

Edward the Confessor

Reigned 1042 – 1066

Son of Etheldred the Unready

Crowned at Winchester

Promised the kingdom first to William of Normandy, and then to Harold Godwin

Harold Godwin

1066 – was crowned Jan. 5, (having been promised the kingdom on the deathbed of Edward the Confessor

died in October 1066 at the Battle of Hastings, against William of Normandy (who was the first to be promised the kingdom by Edward the Confessor)

William of Normandy (William the Conqueror)

Lived from 1035 to 1087

Ruled England from 1066 to 1087 after beating Harold Godwin at the Battle of Hastings

Ended Saxon age of England, fused Norman culture to that of England, thereby establishing the start of modern English culture

William Rufus

William the Conqueror left the throne of England to Rufus

Rufus scorned religion, exploited the church, ruled with a rod of iron.

1089 seized the lands of Canterbury

(Rufus was killed by an arrow while hunting.)

Henry I

ruled from 1100 to 1135

Anselm threatened to excommunicate him in 1105 AD

Norman & Saxon combine under his reign, and he married a Saxon (Matilda)

“Henry I’s reign marks the coming of age of the royal administration. Indeed, some historians have sen it as the seedbed of the modern state. The functions of the royal household officials were growing in importance and specialization.” – Hollister, 135.

The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things rotten through and through, to avoid.

Electronic communication is supposed to be destroying our ability to use normal language, as we resort to various forms of shorthand – BTW, FWIW, LOL, ROFLOL, etc, etc.

Well maybe.

But if it’s a sign of linguistic decline, it’s not the first time. FF Bruce points out that certain greetings were so common in Roman correspondence that letter-writers use abbreviations. Like SVBEEV for “si vales, bene est; ego valeo” (If you are well, it is good; I am well).

The early years of instruction he passed in liberal arts, and so thoroughly imbibed the sweets of learning, that no warlike commotions, no pressure of business, could ever erase them from his noble mind.

William of Malmesbury, book V, 125. said of Henry the I.

Indeed it is known, that, at the siege of Antioch, with a Lorrainian sword, he cut asunder a Turk, who had demanded single combat, and that one half of the man lay panting on the ground, while the horse, at full speed, carried away the other: so firmly the miscreant sat. Another also who attacked him he clave asunder from the neck to the groin, by taking aim at his head with a sword; nor did the dreadful stroke stop here, but cut entirely through the saddle, and the backbone of the horse.

William of Malmesbury, book IV, 394.

Being reproved and excommunicated for this [wife stealing] illicit amour, “You shall curl with a comb,” said he, “the hair that has forsaken your forehead, ere I repudiate the viscountess;” thus taunting a man, whose scanty hair required no comb.

William of Malmesbury, book V, 469.

Here, also, the excess of your learning appears ; for, whilst you love books, you manifest how deeply you have drunk of the stream. For many things, indeed, are eagerly desired when not possessed, but no person will love philosophy, who shall not have imbibed it thoroughly.”

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